Avaya Support

What type of issues are you having and are they moving you up to Tier 2, Tier 3 when your issues are not resolved?

I've seen a LOT of Product Correction Notices (may contain patches or hot fixes) on 3.1 version. Have you checked those to see if it would resolve your problems?

Also I do use Avaya direct for Maintenance. I work alone here and we have a 24x7 shop. What I know about Avaya Maintenance is that they have some self-healing diagnostics setup that the business partners that don't have. I've sat here and watched either the computer or someone dial in on INADS and fix a problem while I happened to be working in the wee hours of the morning and I was thinking to myslef - If I didn't have this I'd have a phone call waking me up right now. I'm never going without maintenance - being able to sleep through the night = priceless!

Also they will leave me emails and voice mails after they recover an LSP or ESS/Gateway site for me and it's so appreciated that they let me sleep unless it's something I need to put my hands on to fix.

Here is a link to the Communication Manager Product Correction notices:

Tier 1 and 2 are useless. They read directly from the docs on support.avaya.com. If I am making a phone call to avaya, I've already done every thing the docs say to do. BP maintenance is the only way to go IMO.

Here is how you get out of your Avaya maintenance.

The new servers are not only new to us. They have only been out about 5 years now and the knowledge base Avaya has for support is not like it was on the G3I's or G3R's being in service for 13 years or more.

I agree with Toni that if the tier 1's can't handle what is going on with your system, then you need to insist they bump you on up to tier 2 or 3 if need be. I am not sure the BP's are any better. From listening to a friend that works for a BP he doesn’t have the resources to turn to that he did on the older systems. In fact the only person they had that was good on the servers, VoIP and Modular Messaging has left. He is their technical support line now as they have to pay Avaya to talk with their tier 3.

If you think about it, most of the work force the BP's use are retired Avaya, Lucent, or AT&T tech's and again the servers have not been out that long.

From working on systems for close to 18 years now, I would suggest that you make and keep the valuable contacts that you make. Don’t be afraid to ask for their direct extension numbers. Use these “good contacts” only after you have done everything you can yourself and have gone through the tier 0 and got no where.

"You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stopped playing."

The issues that we are having are funnily enough IPSI issues with some Port Network just suddenly losing visibility to the core processors. It got to a stage when our business had enough and we failed the system into ESS mode with the second ESS cluster controlling the entire network (34 locations, a mixture of PN's and media gateways). The system has now been in ESS mode for over a month with Avaya Tier 3 working on it. (yes Avaya did dial in and disable the 30 day ESS license so we are still running)

We have put sniffers in all the PN locations and are daily sending the logs to Avaya but we're just getting nowhere. Everyday we hear the same thing, we will look at the logs and let you know tomorrow but it's now been going on for a month. Strangly enough, they are yet to mention that we need to upgrade.

If they recommended a QAR before your CM3.1 upgrade and you refused, this could be why you're having the issues. I've seen them put people on the back-burner because they have this "I told you so" attitude.

You should check out those Product Correction Notices. Also the firmware can be upgraded on the IPSI cards, it may be a simple resolution to your problem you can complete yourself. Do you know what vingage HW and FW you are running on the IPSI's you're having trouble with?

Toni, we on on all the latest firmware as recommended by Avaya. For the IPSI's we're on FW31 and have a mixture of HW2 TN2312AP cards and HW12 TN2312BP's.

I found this info in a link in another post regarding IPSI's - maybe something useful in here you could check: (also check the link in the post to avayausers community)

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Thanks for that info. Those issues do sound horribly familiar. After a call with Avaya today, they said they had spoken to the programmer who wrote the code for the IPSI's and guess what....FW32 is out....obviously not generally available yet.

Think if u do have issues with Tier 2 engineers just ask for the case to esclated to tier 3. Usually once cases go to tier 3 you will get better service in my experience.

Think the problem is that Avaya make tier 2 people cover so many different products its difficult for them to specialise in certain areas.

Tier 3 have been on this issue for over a month. We had to get the problem all the way up to the code programmers just to find out new firmware is out.

thread690-1269387

This may be the answer you have been looking for.

"You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stopped playing."

Thanks Mikey. Very similar to what we are facing. Do Avaya not keep records of problems they have resolved for other customers I wonder?

I think they will if something becomes a "known issue". Then tier 4 will make a patch or a new release to resolve the issues.

Thats what the "P" packs are about as well. Used to, they would issue a QPPCN and replace the packs at NO charge. Now with the programmable packs (Like the IPSI's they are having trouble with) they do a new firmware release to resolve the problems.

"You don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you stopped playing."